Surgical drapes are widely used in surgical operations for the purpose of reducing infection and facilitating the handling of skin around incisions. Normally, they are transparent or translucent. Typically, they consist of a flexible, plastic film which is adhesive-coated and which is applied to the area of the operation, prior to making the incision. Surgical drapes are also used for attaching treatment devices to patients after an operation, such as catheters or drainage tubes.
A further, recently developed use is for connecting a suction tube to a wound for the purpose of stimulating healing of the wound. Such use is described in our earlier PCT applications Nos. WO 96/05873 and WO 97/18007.
Various proposals have been made in the past to design the surgical drape so that handling of the sticky, flexible, plastic film is facilitated. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,622 describes a surgical drape which is a laminate of three materials. The first material comprises a transparent, thin plastic film which is adhesive-coated and the adhesive face protected with a layer of release-coated paper. The other face of the adhesive-coated film is strengthened with a reinforcing layer of a less flexible, plastic film. Handling bars or strips are attached to the flexible, plastic film at its lateral edges to facilitate handling of the flexible, plastic film after stripping away the protective releasable layer.
Where it is desired to use a surgical drape primarily to attach a device such as a catheter to a wound area after an operation or for long term treatment, it is inconvenient for the surgeon or nurse to have to adapt a standard surgical drape for this purpose. It would be more convenient to have a surgical drape which was suitable without adaptation to accommodate the treatment device.